In the conventional form of reefing, a number of reef points were provided across the sail extending from a luff cringle to a leech cringle and when it was desired to execute the reef, individual effort was required to lower the sail, maintain the same in a luff condition, attach the tack cringle to the forward end of the boom near the gooseneck, then attach the leech cringle in a similar fastion, and tie all the reef points around the foot of the sail. This typical maneuver required the use of a number of deck hands and spoiled the shape of the sail so that the vessel lost speed through the water. Modern offshore racing yachts have been utilizing a quick reefing system also known as California Reefing, Slab Reefing, or Jiffy Reefing. Where the halyard is released, the reef tack downhaul is tightened until the luff cringle is drawn down to the gooseneck where it is either fastened by cleating the reef tack downhaul or hooking the cringle onto a gooseneck. The main halyard is then tightened up and the clew cringle line is pulled downwardly toward the foot of the sail and the boom with a sheet being slightly released to allow the boom to assume a new position relative to the sail. With this type of maneuver, only two men are needed, one on the halyard and one on the reefing lines, and the reef can be executed within 30 seconds with a very minimum loss of speed at the time when the sheet must be released in order to adjust the leech into its new position.
The number of lines about the mast of any sailboat become numerous with any system and it is desirous, therefore, to reduce the number of lines to a minimum so that a need for improvement of the reefing systems in indicated.
In the past suggestions for this type of arrangement are seen in patents such as Martin, U.S. Pat. No. 26,915 of 1860, where a plurality of sheaves are provided along the boom and individual reefing lines that extend through reefing cringles in the sail, pass around the sheaves and then are long spliced into a single line that may then pass around a drum of a winch. This system, however, leaves something to be desired as there is no provision for maintaining an outhaul at the clew of the sail nor proper positioning of the tack, and while it is perfectly satisfactory in a gaff rigged arrangement such as illustrated in Martin, same is not appropriate for a modern racing Marconi rigged vessel. Several other examples of similar arrangements are seen in U.S. Pat. Nos. 26,857; 235,868; 315,501; and 417,324.